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from www.filmfare.com – The first time I saw a porn film, I was like, ‘Oh my God! What is this?’ I hurriedly kept the DVD back from where I had found it, glad not to have got caught,” reveals Sunny Leone how as a snoopy teenager she chanced upon a porn DVD in the closet of her conservative Sikh home in Canada.
The next time she watched porn was at the age of 19. She narrates her experience, “It was interesting with young people, all inside a house playing games and running around naked. It was cool!”
The global porn star has now veered to desi shores. Sunny, who dislikes being called a ‘star’, is working in Pooja Bhatt’s controversial directorial venture — the sequel of Jism.
“Who are you to call yourself a star? I’m an entertainer,” she retorts. Her verve can be traced to her upbringing, which encouraged her to be self-reliant.
“I’m a Taurean. If you try to push me into a corner, I’ll charge towards you! My parents raised me to be independent and never count on anyone.”
Having modeled till 2007 for Penthouse, she acquired a certain ease with her body. That’s when an ‘agent’ contacted her to work in porn films.
“I was like holy smokes! As a teenager if you’re offered so much money, you tend to get attracted.”
Though the work was a challenge, she eventually felt it was easier to feature in lesbian films ‘rather than have sex with some random dude’. Changing her name from Karen Malhotra to Sunny Leone was a conscious decision, rather a precautionary one.
“In the adult industry, your safety comes first. Sex does evoke an intense emotion and you may have a crazy fan on your door. ‘Sunny’ sounded a lot more fun. It’s an Indian nickname and Bob Guccione (ex-editor of Penthouse magazine) added the Italian surname Leone because he’s Italian.”
Incidentally, she runs a company called Sun-Lust Pictures (where she creates her own brand of adult movies) with porn actor/ business partner/ husband Daniel Weber.
Her website, launched since 2001, boasts of 150,000 hits a day. It’s been only a year since she married Daniel.
“It may be hard to believe but ours is a conservative relationship. Because my husband and I are the adult industry duo, people imagine it must be like a giant orgy at home but it’s not. We don’t have any adult material at home. You walk in and you’ll never know what we do for a living. Also, I only work with my husband, which makes a huge difference. Because at the end of the day no man or woman would want his spouse to have sex with someone else. That’s human nature. Unless you’re a swinger couple.” So is lovemaking still an emotional experience? “Of course! I ‘love’ on camera. When you love what you do, selling your product becomes easy.”
The offer to participate in Bigg Boss 5 came as a surprise. “When my husband told me about it my reaction was, ‘Are you out of your mind? Do you remember what I do for my living? They will hate me!’ I was also worried about my safety.” But she made her way in and out of it rather safely. And guess what? Sunny is fascinated by the Hindi film industry.
“Bollywood has some of the most beautiful women in the world. There are quite a few Miss Worlds and Miss Universes here. God just carved them out perfect. I’d be star struck if I were to meet Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra,” she gushes.
Ask her about her producer and mentor here Pooja Bhatt and she says, “Like me, she pushes the envelope to create something untypical. She was once considered a sex-symbol. One of my best friends, who’s a lesbian, had the biggest crush on Pooja.” Reportedly, Sunny will also be part of Ekta Kapoor’s sequel of Ragini MMS.
“The future is so surreal, like a rollercoaster ride. I want audiences to like Jism 2. I have worked really, really hard. I have learnt Hindi. Tell me how many A-listers get it bang on in their first film?”
Of course, for now work has stopped on her website. There’s no way she can straddle two worlds – that of a Hindi film heroine and a porn star. She says, “I don’t think I can, it’s not legal for me to shoot anything here. It really depends on what happens after Jism 2. I’ll never say I don’t want to be part of adult industry ever. My roots are there, it’s who I am, it’s where I come from.” We talk about pornography in India and the actress says she doesn’t think India is ready for it as yet.
“I don’t think India is ready for that. But this generation is getting used to ‘bold scenes’ on TV. However, for change to happen, it will take some time. We’re going to pave the way.” With a slight cringe in her voice Sunny narrates, “I walked into the government office the other day to register myself. They still have their files tied by a string, stacked on top of one another. There’s a lot more that needs to be revamped before anything like porn can be legalised. I guess it will be done only after you and I have turned really, really old. And I’ll be ‘Yay’!”